1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to decision support software in diagnosing equipment failures, such as the cases when production equipment fails unexpectedly. This invention provides a method to be used in a computational engine to help the user pinpoint the failed component in a complex machine with a large number of components.
2. Background Description
Consider the situation when a piece of equipment, such as a machine on the production shop floor, has failed. An immediate task is to diagnose the failure to determine what needs to be done to bring the equipment back to a running state. In particular, the failed component(s), among the possibly large number of candidates, have to be identified and then repaired or replaced. We focus on the first step: diagnosis where the failed component(s) is identified. When the equipment is relatively simple (such as a household appliance) or when the repair technician is highly skilled and experienced, this diagnosis is usually straightforward and quick. When the equipment is complex with many failure modes (such as computer-controlled production equipment, aircraft, or large scale computing equipment), and/or when the repair technician is less experienced (such as the case in many industries where labor turnover is high), the diagnosis task may take considerable time. Further, failures may often be diagnosed incorrectly, resulting in wasted time and resources of replacing a working part and another iteration of diagnosis-repair. On the other hand, in many industries (e.g., semiconductor manufacturing, airlines, critical data centers) unexpected down time of equipment can be very costly.